


Deviousness, Daring and Delicious Dresses

by HASA_Archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Fourth Age, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2004-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 08:51:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3762128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HASA_Archivist/pseuds/HASA_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drugs, ideology, and dodgy dealing in dungeons. Beware parody and innuendo as  fetishism hits Middle Earth, and Gimli still hasn’t toned down the language.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Of Deviousness, Daring and Delicious Dresses

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

The sky was dove-grey, flying scarves of high cloud like chiffon from horizon to horizon. It was the kind of day that suited Arwen. She stood on the battlements, her long black hair lifting light as smoke in the wind, her far-seeing eyes scanning the plain below. At length she saw what she sought and leaned forward eagerly, her eyes following a faint flash of movement, travelling fast over the plain towards the road that led to Minas Tirith. With a small sound of satisfaction, Arwen turned in a swirl of airy fabric onto the spiral stairway that twisted down into the castle.

“Eowyn, darling! Too divine to see you. Is that a new helmet, sweet? You look marvellous in it, but do take it off, there’s a love, so I can give you a kiss.”

Eowyn pulled off the helmet with her gloved hands so that all her bright yellow hair sprayed out. Arwen stifled an uncharitable twinge of irritation. Honestly, anyone would think she was one of those sickening biker chicks. “You haven’t changed a bit, darling.”

“Neither have you, of course.”

“Not sure what that ‘of course’ means, Eowyn. It wasn’t the teensiest bit catty, was it? So how is the dragon-killing going?”

“Oh, you know…” Eowyn clumped after Arwen in her big leather boots. “There aren’t so many around these days. I heard a rumour about a fire-breathing beast down in Harad but it turned out to be some kind of steam-engine thing someone’s invented. And the cave-troll in Bree was living peacefully, keeping bees, they can’t sting him you know, so I didn’t have the heart to kill him really.”

“You poor darling. It’s a bit of an addiction, isn’t it, killing frightful monsters, I can see that life’s a bit dull for you without them. But how is Faramir, still keeping house?”

“He’s awfully good at it. The children adore him. They climb all over him when he’s trying to study in the library, but he doesn’t mind a bit, even when they use his books to build fortresses or set light to them playing the siege of ecthelion, or pull his hair getting him to tell them about barmy grandpa Denethor and how he sent off daddy to be slaughtered and then nearly burnt daddy alive, they love it, it’s their favourite bedtime story.”

“How nice,” said Arwen, with a small shudder. “Chardonnay?”

“Haven’t you got any mead?” Eowyn asked, sitting down and swinging her booted feet up onto the table. “Or real ale?”

“I’ll send down for some,” Arwen said, her smile slipping slightly.

The next to arrive was Rosie.

“Arwen!” she shrieked. “Eowyn! I can’t believe you’re here! Its been just an age, a squillion years since I saw you. This is so amazing! You look fabulous.”

“So do you,” said Arwen. “Isn’t that warg fur? Darling, how _outre._ And you’ve got orc nail earrings. But don’t tell me Sam lets you get away with the ponyskin.”

“He hasn’t seen it,” Rosie confided. “It’s been at the back of the wardrobe for just ever. He’s so not into clothes it’s a drag. I buy him all this lovely stuff but I can’t get him out of that old gardener’s jacket Frodo gave him years ago. People like it, I mean it shows what a lovely loyal nature he has, doesn’t it? But it does make him look like a baggy old servant, and I mean we’re celebrities now, we have to live up to that.”

“Live up to what?” A slight, bright-haired figure entered in a cool shiver of water drops and the room instantly brightened. “Arwen. Rosie. Eowyn.” She dropped light dreamy kisses on their cheeks. “I’m not late am I?”

“You know nothing could possibly start before you arrived, Goldberry, merry yellow berry-o–”

“River-woman’s daughter, slender as the willow-wand, clearer than the water–”

“Oh, don’t you start.” Goldberry slid into a chair as effortlessly as if poured from a jug. “Tom’s been at home singing at me all week, his confidence has taken a bit of a bashing recently and he wanted me to restore it.”

“Tom losing his confidence? Surely you’re joking?”

“It’s the barrow-wights.” Goldberry absent-mindedly took a glass of chardonnay. “There are so many travellers coming over the moors and disappearing into the barrows, and waking up covered in old swords and jewellery. People have read Frodo’s book, it’s all the fashion, all this sword n’ sorcery thing. And apparently the swords and all that dreadful chunky jewellery fetch a fortune these days. Frankly no one is frightened anymore, and the wights are understandably a bit peeved about the whole thing. They came to Tom, told him that if they were going to be some kind of tourist attraction they at least wanted to see some profits. Suggested he help them set up a Barrow-Wight Experience, asked him to write the prospectus. Which he did. But then they didn’t like the poetry, said it was too old-fashioned, and he didn’t understand all the commercial potential–”

“They’re still dangerous, those barrow-wights,” Eowyn said, fingering the handle of her sword reflectively. She brightened. “Perhaps I should go and sort them out. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.”

“Really Eowyn, I don’t think branching out into tourism sounds very dangerous; I think it’s frightfully enterprising of them.” Arwen cocked her head sideways, listening. She smiled dazzlingly. “I think the next TTFS member’s arrived.”

Doors banged. Footsteps shook the floor. A voice roared, “Where’s the fucking party?” The door crashed open and a short, broad, purple-clad figure stood on the threshold.

“Gimli darling, did you leave any of the doors on their hinges?”

Gimli lifted Arwen off the ground in a huge hug. “Your fucking castle gets bigger every time I come. I ended up in the toilets twice before I managed to find you. Great taps you’ve got in there, I like the one that runs champagne.”

“It is rather super, isn’t it? Gimli, sweet, you’re wearing a dress.”

“That’s a bit bloody observant of you, Arwen, it would take an elf’s eyesight to notice.”

“It’s the one we bought together in Bree,” said Rosie, submitting to a throttling hug. “Gimli came to one of Frodo’s book signings, before he went off, and it was so great wasn’t it, Gimli, I mean, everyone had so many questions, they were like so interested, they wanted to know what it had been like, being the only female in the Fellowship, and why no one had like _noticed_ for so long–”

“The cunts,” said Gimli, looking rather gratified. “D’you like it then? I think I look like a dog in it.”

“Darling, you couldn’t. Won’t you have some chardonnay?”

“For fuck’s sake Arwen. Where’s the vodka?”

Eowyn was on her third real ale. It was hard going, but one had to keep up appearances. “Where’s Aragorn?” she asked in a casual tone, attempting to slap her thigh off-handedly and spilling half her drink.

Did you want to see him, darling? He’s not here, he’s off coping with terrible danger, saving the world, as usual. Legolas turned up with some horrendously picturesque injury so of course they both had to charge off and drip a bit more blood around the place.” Arwen noticed Eowyn’s rapt, disappointed face. “I’m sure it wasn’t any serious danger, Eowyn sweet. If it was they would have told you. Anyway you know far more about dragons and monsters and all those frightful things. No, it was probably another gang of fanfics, little menaces, really, sometimes one wishes for Sauron again, not seriously of course, just the teensiest longing, he would have cleared up all these tiresome fanfics so nicely.”

“So how’s the TTFS membership? Anyone else coming this year?”

“The Entwives are still discussing it–”

“Don’t,” said Goldberry, shuddering, “call them Entwives.”

“Whatever do you mean, darling?”

“They’re Ents, not Entwives. And if the male Ents want to differentiate themselves from the female Ents they can damn well call themselves Enthusbands. Except that the Ents don’t want any husbands. There was a reason they left. All that unspeakably tedious hrooming and booming, not to mention the grooming problem. And they were quite happy in their new forest, minding their own business, procreating quietly among themselves, until Merry and Pippin had to open their big mouths and blab to old tree-ears or whatever his name is.”

“I thought it was really romantic,” said Rosie moistly. “It was one of those really unexpected nice subplots, the Ents and the Entwives finding each other again after all those years, it’s something I’ve written about in my column, about how Sauron and the ring were really bringing couples together, it’s a fantastic metaphor, the ring, you know, like it brought me and Sam together and we’ve forged this really like unbreakable bond–”

“And then they all came charging across half of Middle Earth demanding their conjugal rights again,” Goldberry continued, ignoring this. “It’s disgustingly patriarchal and out-of-date.”

“Well do forgive me, Goldberry sweet, I swear never to call them Entwives again, I’ll make a teensy note in my diary, I Must Not Say Entwife In Future, there, I’ve committed it to immortal memory. So anyway, they’re still discussing joining us, if I haven’t offended them too dreadfully with my mistake – I haven’t, Goldberry? Oh, what an unthinkable relief. Now, where was I. Oh yes. I did think we could talk again about asking Shelob to join the TTFS–”

“She nearly killed my Sam!”

“–She’s really quite a reformed character since she lost those limbs. She’s still got a terrible personality complex, poor darling, but now she’s resigned to just the five legs her analyst’s been working hard to persuade her that she can’t really be called a spider anymore, she just has to be positive, think creatively, so she’s struggling with the identity thing–”

“She nearly killed my Sam!”

“Rosie, we know that,” Arwen said patiently. “But we’re all girls together, aren’t we, darling? Sisterhood? I really think we shouldn’t let our men get in the way of the TTFS and what holds us together. I mean, I don’t feel a grudge against Eowyn for trying to steal my boyfriend in Rohan while I was busy making life-shattering decisions about my immortal future, do I?”

“Er,” said Eowyn, turning pink.

“I never could quite understand what that was with Aragorn anyway,” said Goldberry conversationally. “I mean, there you had a perfectly unattached and perfectly gorgeous elf, just, perfectly, gorgeous…”

There was a collective sigh and a moment of respectful silence.

“I saw him on my way here,” Gimli said. “Daft cunt. He sent you all big sloppy kisses.”

“The poor darling’s jealous. He’d like to be a Token Female really. He calls me all the time, elf telepathy’s such a lovely thing for keeping in touch. He sent me the fabric for this frock, he found it somewhere in Umbar.” Arwen held out her slim arms and did a little graceful twirl. “He’s such a love, don’t you just die for him?”

“I die for the frock,” Rosie squeaked. “It’s so unfair Arwen, you’re so _thin_.”

“It’s the cut of the dress, darling. If there’s one thing Galadriel taught me, it’s that there are few things as flattering as bias-cut chiffon. Did I tell you I’ve got a boutique opening in Mordor? Apparently the orcs are simply crying out for pretty clothes. It’s too thrilling.”

“I suppose Galadriel was a bit disappointed when you went in for all this materialism in such a big way,” Eowyn remarked.

“If I didn’t know you better I’d say you were being bitchy,” said Arwen sweetly. “Do leave that to the real girls, you don’t stand a chance. Anyway I don’t know why Galadriel should be disappointed. She always said Make Love Not War, in her rare lucid moments when she wasn’t experimenting with interesting fungi.”

“Wasn’t that Love Not War in the sense of presenting armed orcs with daisies,” said Goldberry, “rather than selling them designer clothes?”

“Well, we elves simply can’t help our impeccable taste.” Arwen inspected a pink fingernail patterned with filigree roses. “And we all have our own little ways of spreading joy. I can do all that sword-dancing and communal living and talking to trees as well. It’s just that the materialism you mentioned is so much more fun. I did think you’d like to have this year’s TTFS knees-up in Minas Tirith so we could go shopping. We’ve got a heavenly new D&G.” Rosie let out an excited squeak. Eowyn looked blank. “Anyway Galadriel’s gone on to the Grey Havens, where I’m sure she’s perfectly hippy, I mean happy.”

“Why’s it still called Grey?” said Rosie. “That’s so like _passe_ , that’s so out this season.”

I think that’s the point, darling. The times they are a-changin’ but not in the final commune over the sea.”

“And now Frodo’s there as well. How’s Sam coping, Rosie?”

“Well thank goodness he’s got me. I mean, this is really why I’m so important, we’re so important, because he came back to me, you know, if not he would definitely have gone off with Frodo. I’m writing a book about it actually, about how hard it is, keeping the family together and how I’m the Lynchpin, it’s funny how so many people want to hear about it. I’ve done so many talk shows but I spend half my time answering letters on How to Make Your Man Stay, it’s quite life-affirming, I think I’ve really found my niche.”

“Niche, darling, like quiche, not nitch. First Bilbo, then Frodo, now you, you hobbits are turning out to be quite the publishing sensation. I think it’s too splendid. And isn’t Sam being tempted into authorship?”

“Well you know he’s so down-to-earth, he’s not you know kind of literary–”

“Can he actually read?” Goldberry whispered behind her hand to Gimli.

“–and he’s not really all that interested in the celebrity thing, he can’t understand that he’s got so much to teach people, there’s so much like pain in the world, and he could really help people come to terms with that.”

“So he really can’t be lured into the limelight?”

“Well, he’s quite a star on Gardener’s Question Time...”

“Has anyone got any other nominations for TTFS membership?” Arwen asked, several glasses later.

“Well actually, I wanted to say something about the TTFS,” Rosie said breathlessly. “You see, I’ve been doing some thinking and coming to the conclusion that we’re really doing ourselves down with the society, with the name, I mean, the Token thing, because I’m so important to Sam I mean, like–”

“You mean, behind every great hobbit stands another even greater hobbit, teetering on three-inch heels?”

“Three and a half.” Rosie looked down at her Jimmy Hobbit mules (extra-wide fittings). “I mean, Sam would never have gone if it wasn’t for me. He would never have come back if it wasn’t for me. You know, I think I was really central for his whole quest thing, you know, I was, like, the prime mover, the whole _raison d’etre_ –”

”No you weren’t, Rosie, the ring returning to Sauron so he could take over Middle Earth and kill everyone was the _raison d’_ fucking _etre_.”

“And Sam’s heightened class consciousness as Frodo’s, ahem, gardener was the prime mover.”

“No, but I was really, you know, like _present_ the whole way, I was there, in Mordor and, and that place, Ilithion – Inithiel – I mean, in spirit I was walking with Sam the whole time really, I was totally like central, really key, you know?”

“Of course you were,” said Arwen soothingly. “But we’re not about to rename the TTFS are we, darlings? For the TVIFS? Perhaps we could have a vote–” She turned her head towards the door. “Is that the champers? Come in!”

The door opened and a messenger sidled in. “Message for the TTFS.”

“Well do deliver it, there’s an angel.”

The messenger shuffled its feet. “It is from My Master.” It held out a smoking black envelope with a blood red seal.

“A mysterious message, how simply divine. Won’t you have some champagne?”

“No thanks. You got the message then? I’ll just sidle off.”

“Well, if you insist.”

“Er, Arwen,” said Gimli. “Wasn’t that a really fucking weird kind of messenger?”

“He had claws instead of hands.”

“And his voice was really like creepy, kind of hissy, you know.”

“I think he might have been a monster,” said Eowyn. “Damn. I suppose it’s too late now.”

“Oh, I don’t suppose he can help it, the poor thing,” said Arwen absently, peeling open the envelope, which gave off a strong stink of sulphur. “I expect he was embarrassed, that’s why he wouldn’t stay for a drink. What a frightful smell. Do let’s see what’s in it.”

woMEN!

you tHought Evil had disapeared frOM middle EARTH. You wEre wRoNg. mwa ha ha.

I have got YOUr men and will kill theM slowly anD hOribly with PLENTY of gratuITous torture unLESS you agree TO PAY a VAsT ransom. I wll send my deMANds shoRtly this is onLy tHE 1 WarnINg

ps Oh yEs Ive got Bor sorry faramir tOO, and that weirdY beardy Bloke with THE crap poetry They too wILL die horibly

“He wants us to pay VAT?” Arwen frowned at the letter. “This isn’t from those dreadfully petty tax inspectors is it? They’re always on at me to pay tax on my boutiques, as if it were some sordid business and not Art.”

“It’s not VAT, its vast,” said Goldberry. “Ransom. I can see why he cut and pasted the letters, his handwriting’s appalling. Can anyone read this signature? The Euit Ever.. what?… Overcoat?”

“Something something toad–”

“The Evil Overlord,” Eowyn spelled out. She looked up, her eyes shining. “He must have lots of really fearsome monsters.”

“It’s a bit of a vague job description, could be anyone really,” Goldberry pointed out. “And I don’t know why he had to be so rude about Tom’s poetry.”

“Yeah, stupid fucker can’t even spell.” Gimli took the envelope and shook out a long, fine braid of shining golden hair. “Legolas must be really pissed off, poor bastard. And this is yours, Arwen.”

Arwen took the silver chain and pendant from Gimli and surveyed it critically. “I never did much like it on Aragorn, much too effeminate, and that art nouveau style is terribly derivative. But he will insist on wearing it, rather sweet really. What else is in there, Gimli?”

“Just some shitty old buttons. Mass-produced bollocks.” Gimli jiggled them in her palm.

Rosie let out a shriek. “Sam!”

“Where?”

“No, I mean, they’re Sam’s. They’re from his old gardening jacket, the one Frodo gave him. I’ve been trying to get him to throw it away for like ages, it’s so old and nasty, it was really cheap even when it was new. But Sam adores it, he even sleeps in it which is a bit like upsetting actually.”

“He sleeps in it?” Gimli looked at the buttons in disgust. “That’s really fucked-up, Rosie.”

Rosie burst into tears. “I – I know he really loves me, he came back because of me, it was me that like kept him going all the way to M-Mordor, but its really hard you know, it’s such a like, like _responsibility_ , k-keeping the family together, b-being the l-lynchpin, and there are all my readers, my f-fans, they r-r-rely on me…”

“It’s easy, just burn the thing when he’s not looking,” Goldberry advised.

“Come on Rosie, you daft bint.” Gimli patted her on the back. “Don’t cry just because you’re married to a fucking weirdo.”

“You’ll quite spoil your fur,” said Arwen. “Have some champers, darling, and you’ll soon feel better.”

“Ahem,” said Eowyn.

The four women turned to look at her. Eowyn was standing up straight, her face radiant amidst her yellow hair, her sword in her hand. “Don’t you think we’re _missing the point_ here?”

“What’s point’s that, Eowyn?”

Eowyn stamped her foot. “The Evil Overlord has just kidnapped all our men and they’re going to die horribly unless we rescue them. That’s the point.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Of course. You are right.”

“That’s true. Hmmm.”

Rosie blew her nose rather disgustingly into Arwen’s silk handkerchief.

“So,” said Gimli. “Any ideas?”

“ _We go and rescue them, of course!_ ” Eowyn shouted.

“That’s terribly obvious, isn’t it, darling? Not that I don’t agree,” Arwen added hastily as Eowyn’s sword waved in a threatening manner. “I don’t know why this evil overlord couldn’t have been a tiny bit more specific in his letter; I mean, a bit of background would have been nice, so we know what we’re dealing with, I do hope it’s high quality evil, not some frightful insulting little upstart.”

“He must be fairly respectable; he seems to have his own postal service.” Goldberry had taken the envelope and was inspecting it. “I suppose he sends out a lot of these notes. Obviously he’s not the only one who thinks those crebain charge far too much for deliveries. Here we are. The Evil Overlord inc., Castle Fang, Mirkyblerkmarsh.”

“That’s a really shite name for a marsh,” said Gimli.

“Sort of descriptive though. It was considerate of him to include an address, I must say. So I suppose we should drink up, darlings, and gird our loins or whatever it is rescuers are supposed to do.”

“Gather our weapons,” said Eowyn. “Assess allies and resources. Sound out the enemy’s weakness.”

“Goodness Eowyn, you do surprise me, I always thought charging in with insane bravery was the thing to do.”

“A Really Cunning Plan wouldn’t be amiss,” said Goldberry. “I’ll get working on that, shall I?”

“Fuck. I left my axe behind,” said Gimli. “I thought I looked a bit of a wanker with it in this frock.”

“Never mind, darling, somewhere down near the dungeons there’s a dreary old armoury where I’m sure you’ll find everything you need. And look out something for Rosie, there’s an angel, I believe you hobbits are quite handy with those little swords, Stings or whatever they’re called.”

“Anything for you, Arwen?”

“Oh, I’ll just go and put on some lippy,” said Arwen vaguely. “Well, a last toast, girls. Fill up your glasses. I think it ought to be vodka and champers actually, do forget about that horrid real ale stuff, Eowyn, it’s got hardly any alcohol in it you know.”

“To deviousness and daring and really delicious dresses,” said Goldberry.

“To outrageous rescues and intrepid monster-slaying,” said Eowyn.

“To our you know like really loved ones, and us being totally like strong and focussed and Together,” said Rosie.

“And showing those fucking tossers,” said Gimli.

Arwen lifted her glass and chimed it together with the others. “Darlings, to the Tolkien Token Female Society, to _us!_ ”


	2. chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drugs, ideology, and dodgy dealing in dungeons. Beware parody and innuendo as fetishism hits Middle Earth, and Gimli still hasnt toned down the language.

“Bleary dreary smeary and not at all cheery.”  
“Slimier than an orc’s armpit.”  
“Blacker than up a nazgul’s nostril.”  
“An impenetrable and tenebrous miasma.”  
“What the fuck does that mean?”  
Goldberry smirked. “Blacker than a nazgul’s nostril.”  
“Show-off,” grumbled Gimli, taking another swig from the flask.  
Arwen sighed. Goldberry and Gimli had been playing this not-very-amusing game of describing their surroundings for hours, using generous gulps from Gimli’s hipflask to aid invention.  
“Think I can’t do better than that? How about this: an excess of tenebrosity equal only in its pitchy and miasmic bottomlessness to that most bucket-like and black of orifices, Shelob’s c–”  
“Gimli!” Arwen looked as irritated as her relentlessly fair face would allow. “There’s no need to be horrid.”  
“It was meant as a compliment. After all, everyone remembers that bit of the adventure, especially Sam.”  
“You leave my Sam alone!” Rosie snapped. “I don’t believe Sam remembers that bit at all, he never talks about it, he’s got a completely like normal attitude to female sexuality, the analyst said –” There was a slimy, sucking _glop_ and Rosie’s left foot came out of the mud minus its Jimmy Hobbit mule. “Oh pigging sodding hell!” Rosie wailed, bursting into tears.  
“There wasn’t much point in having just one anyway,” Goldberry pointed out. The first shoe had disappeared several hours ago.  
Rosie threw a handful of mud at her.  
“Well, pardon me for breathing,” said Goldberry acidly.  
“Darlings.” Arwen felt rather like swearing herself. Elf though she was, she’d still broken a nail and the hem of her dress was all muddy. “Let’s not let our tempers get the better of us. Deep breath now. Remember: poise, remember: stiff upper lip. I do hate to hold up Eowyn as a model but she does seem to be getting on rather splendidly compared to the rest of us – ”  
“Smug bitch,” Gimli muttered.  
“ – so I think we should just pull ourselves together and not let this frightful place get us down. Alright, dears?”  
The four bedraggled females looked ahead glumly to where Eowyn was striding tirelessly through the murk, her sword over her shoulder and her yellow hair flying.  
“S’pose so.”  
“Alright Arwen.”  
“Bet she was a bloody girl guide. In fact, bet you were too, or was it an 18 – 30 rep? Jollying along, jollying along, jolly my fucking arse…”  
“Oh shut up, Gimli, there’s an angel.”  
They had been walking through Mirkyblerkmarsh for what felt like days. It was slimy. It was dark. It was cold. It sucked, it glopped, it stank. It was full of crawling, squelching, burping things. It was, frankly, one of the most hideous places in Middle Earth.  
“What kind of Evil fucking Overlord chooses to live in a shit-hole like this?” Gimli wondered. “I mean, if I was all powerful and stuff I think I’d go for a few palm trees, a bunch of nubile concubines, a never-ending supply of Bloody Maries – ”  
“He’s evil,” Goldberry pointed out. “Evil is the antithesis of fun and frivolity. Look at Sauron: lived in a volcano, for goodness’ sake, surrounded by stinky orcs and people who’d been dead for a very long time.”  
“Yeah, never could quite get my head round that one. What’s the point? Didn’t he have any imagination? I daresay I could get pretty evil with some palm trees and Bloody Maries, especially where the concubines were concerned.”  
“Thank the Valar you’re on the side of Good then.”  
“That’s where all the pretty things are.” Gimli leered. “Funny how there’s no sexy Evil in Middle Earth, talking of a failure of imagination.”  
“Wait til you see the orcs in my clothing range,” said Arwen. “They try so hard, they’re terribly sweet really.”  
“But not sexy.”  
“Well perhaps not actually sexy…”  
“Oh my lord.” Goldberry stopped and peered into the gloom. “Speaking of which..”  
“Oo-er,” said Rosie. Striding purposely through the marsh towards them was a large, burly orc.  
“That’s not one of mine,” said Arwen critically. “Terrible cut. And that colour, does absolutely nothing for the poor dear.”  
“Not sure that its sartorial flair is what you should be attending to right now. The fact that it’s waving a massive mace might be more to the point.” Gimli hefted her borrowed axe somewhat less confidently than usual. “I do look a wanker with it in this frock, don’t I.”  
“And you’re complaining about me getting distracted.”  
“Eowyn!” Rosie shrieked.  
Eowyn had long outdistanced her bickering fellow TTFS members, but despite her determined demeanour her heart was heavy. Here were no monsters. She’d chopped up a few of the squelching burping oozing bog creatures, but that was no challenge and anyway, they smelt even worse in pieces. The Evil Overlord seemed to be relying on bad weather and monotonous vegetation to demoralise the troops, which she considered outrageous cheating. Ah, Middle Earth was not what it used to be; how she longed for the simple days when she had been a frustrated shield maiden and Aragorn had turned up with his stringy hair and dirty finger nails and silly outdated attitudes towards women, ah, fighting side by side, shoulder to shoulder with Aragorn…  
A faint cry jerked her out of her reverie. She looked round. Dozens of orcs were emerging from the murk, cutting off any hope of escape. Her heart instantly lifting with fierce joy, she lifted her sword from her shoulder and charged.  
“Look mate, don’t do that, there’s a duck.”  
“What?” Gimli blinked, mid-swing.  
“There’s no need, honest. Hope you don’t mind me saying, but you look a bit, well..”  
“I know, I look a total wanker. Speak for yourself, fuck-face. At least my dress fits me.”  
“There’s no need to rub it in,” said the orc miserably. “That’s what we’re here for, actually.”  
“What are you on about? Can we just get on with the wholesale killing?”  
“Tired of killing, it’s so bleeding tedious. Look mate, we’re here to strike a bargain.”  
“Bargain with an orc? You must be off your trolley.” Gimli raised her axe again but beside her Rosie squeaked “Stop! They’re going to help us rescue my Sam!”  
Gimli glanced around uncertainly.  
“We’re going to negotiate, are we?” said Goldberry coolly. “Who would have thought the orcs had so much sense? So, if you can help us to get our men back, what do you want in return?”  
Without a word the surrounding orcs lifted their thick, muscular black arms and pointed at Arwen.  
Arwen straightened from her graceful martial arts stance with a dazzling smile. “My darlings, how terribly flattering. What might you want with me though, could I enquire? If it’s all that elf-torture and malicious taunting I’m not sure the TTFS would agree, would you now, girls?”  
“Well Sam’s really like important, he’s the hero of the Ring and I’m his wife, we’re really you know famous, and I think people should be willing like to make any kind of sacrifice – ” Rosie broke off with a little squeak as Goldberry trod on her foot.  
“It’s not that.” The lead orc scrubbed its toe bashfully in the mud. “We want to be like the elves again.”  
“We used to want to kill you but now we want to be friends.”  
“We want to be pretty.”  
“We want to be clever.”  
“We want to join the TTFS.”  
“I’m afraid you can’t do that,” said Arwen. “You’re not – are you?”  
“…Fuck me,” said Gimli.

Castle Fang had all the required attributes of an Evil Overlord’s lair – unassailable phallic towers circled by venomous winged beasts, a black and stinking moat inhabited by dimly-glimpsed monsters, high barred windows like evilly-peering eyes, a very firmly drawn-up drawbridge – and a secret entrance.  
“Thank you so much for showing us the back way in, darlings,” Eowyn cooed. “We’d never have found it without you clever old things.”  
The orcs looked at her adoringly, surreptitiously shoving each other to get closest to her.  
“Of course we wouldn’t have found it, we wouldn’t have even been looking for it,” Eowyn burst out. She had looked on the verge of tears ever since the orcs had so spectacularly capitulated. “What happened to bravery? What happened to daring? Where are all the monsters? I can’t believe we’re going to sneak in like – like –”  
“Oh cheer up, Eowyn.” Gimli slapped her on the back. “Weren’t you the one talking about assessing weaknesses and allies and all that bollocks? So it turns out the Evil Overlord’s weakness is mutiny in the ranks, all I can say is, yeah, workers’ rights, up with the fucking revolution.”  
“I wouldn’t be so sure about the lack of monsters either.” Goldberry was peering suspiciously into the secret entrance. A very narrow, steep flight of stairs wound upwards into pitch blackness. “I seem to remember someone showed Sam and Frodo a secret entrance into Mordor, and look what they found there.”  
“That most bucket-like and black of orifices–”  
“Oh shut up, Gimli.”  
They stepped forward cautiously into the claustrophobic darkness. “I could carry you if you’d let me,” an orc offered Arwen shyly.  
“No, let me, I’m much stronger than that flat-footed pile of warg droppings.”  
“Get lost, you stinking toe-nail.”  
“I could hold your hand.”  
“I could hold up the hem of your dress.”  
“I could –”  
Arwen looked charmed. “It’s really too kind of you, darlings. All this attention for teensy little me. But you know I’m an elf, I can see my way quite well, I was trotting about bringing light into dark places long before you were born, not that I like to remind you. Perhaps you could give Eowyn a hand?”  
Eowyn gave a threatening growl and swung her sword meaningfully.  
The staircase went up, and then it went down. It went sideways for a while. The steps were uniformly slippery and irregular. The only light came from two smoky torches the orcs carried, and Arwen’s ethereal elvish glow. The arching stone echoed the clomping steps and the hissed “Shhh!” “You trod on my toe, you clumsy great lump!” “Hey, that’s _my_ place–” ‘Get your bleeding mace out of my ear,” until it sounded like a whole army was moving through the tunnels.  
“I know it’s the secret entrance but where’s it the secret entrance _to_?” asked Rosie, after a very long time.  
“Good question,” said Goldberry. “Don’t you get the impression we’re going round in circles?”  
“Hey you, shit-for-brains.” Gimli grabbed the nearest orc by the collar. “Where are you taking us?”  
“It’s bigger on the inside than the outside,” said the orc.  
“What?”  
“Castle Fang. It’s built using the principles of Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. It’s as big as you want it to be, basically. You can’t imagine what a pain it is when you want the toilet in the middle of the night.”  
“Don’t get fucking philosophical with me. When are we going to get to our blokes?”  
“What happened to your elf telepathy, Arwen?” Goldberry asked. “Can’t you call Legolas? Tell him we’re on our way?”  
Arwen cocked her head slightly to one side and closed her eyes. “He’s still not answering, the naughty thing. I’m sure we’re getting closer though. I seem to feel a warm kind of glow.”  
It wasn’t long before they all felt the warm glow. They began to sweat. It was difficult to breathe. The end of the tunnel gleamed red. Sinister light gleamed along the edge of Eowyn’s sword as she moved ahead of the others, poised and eager like a dancer awaiting her entrance.  
The tunnel ended in a large, windowless room of stone. Chains and various suggestive implements of leather and iron hung from the walls; the ceiling was invisible in the darkness overhead. The only light was a dull, pulsing, purplish red.  
Huddled against the wall across the room were two men, a hobbit, an elf and a male of ambiguous age and species. Between them and the tunnel entrance something huge flickered in sultry smoke and flame; a hoof, a burning tip of tail, what might have been a horn, a shadowed and terrible eye...  
“A balrog,” Arwen breathed.  
“Eek,” said Rosie.  
“You fuckers!” Gimli roared. “Thought you’d feed us to a balrog, did you–”  
“You’re wasting your breath,” Goldberry said tartly. The tunnel behind them was empty.  
Eowyn paced out into the middle of the room. How her sword lifted in her hand, as if it had a life of its own, how her heart soared. Behind the smoking, swirling balrog, the males she had come to rescue were waving and shouting feebly. She took no notice. Concentration was everything. She took a delicate step to the left, then to the right, never taking her eyes from the shadowy, glimmering eye.  
“Eowyn, stop!”  
“Don’t –”  
“Please, Eowyn –”  
This was what she lived for. She dodged and feinted, her hair scorching; it could have been for hours, it could have been minutes. She danced forward under its guard and swung her sword with all her strength.  
“ _No_!”  
With a ponderous, shuddering crash, the balrog collapsed to the floor. Thick black smoke roiled upwards.  
“Oh, _Eowyn_ –”  
Eowyn frowned, feeling suddenly uncertain. It was not a feeling she was familiar with. There was lovely, grubby, silly old Aragorn, oh, Aragorn, looking at her exasperatedly…  
There was his insufferable sidekick the elf, rolling his eyes at the ceiling. The hobbit Sam had an expression of dismay on his plain hobbity face. There was someone in a ridiculous blue bobble hat like one of those pathetic middle-age ravers, clearly completely off his face…  
Oh, and there was Faramir, saying with gentle resignation, “Hello love...”  
She began to feel the slightest bit uneasy. In fact, just a little bit, could it be silly?  
“What is it?” she said doubtfully.  
“It was only the last living balrog in Middle Earth,” said Sam accusingly. “It was in the Red Book and everything, endangered species. And you – just – killed – the last one.”  
“It was a bloody balrog,” said Gimli. “You know, one of those that killed Gandalf. Almost killed, whatever. Endangered fucking species my arse.”  
“I knew I should have gone with Master Frodo to the Grey Havens,” said Sam dolefully. “Here we are destroying the planet, what’s left of it, nothing grows like what it used to, now the last ever balrog’s gone, it’s like my gaffer used to say...”  
“But I’m here, baby!" Rosie squealed across the steaming bulk of the dead monster. “Sam, we came to find you!”  
“I think you just murdered our escape route, that’s the trouble,” Aragorn sighed. “Not that it wasn’t really impressive, Eowyn. Valar, that undercut to the right, superb, and the feint before stabbing sinister so as to disable the left arm – ”  
“I'm really frightfully pleased to see you too, Aragorn darling,” interrupted Arwen, “and yes, thank you, we had a very pleasant journey, a few little _contretemps_ with orcs, ghouls, ravening wolves and that sort of inconvenience but we got here all in one piece so I’d like to set your mind at rest on that score, I can see you were terribly worried.”  
“Hey, Legolas, you tosser,” said Gimli.  
“Hey, Gimli, you twat,” said Legolas.  
“Oh river woman's daughter, fairer than the water, Goldberry so charming, now you’ve done some harming, so we mourn the balrog, the last – ”  
“I think I’ll do you the kindness of interrupting before you realise there’s no rhyme for ‘balrog’” said Goldberry. “And do pray tell us why you’re all less than pleased to see us.”  
“Because you walked straight into my trap,” said a new voice. It was a breathy, hissy and frankly rather unconvincing sort of voice. A figure draped entirely in a black cloak emerged from the archway behind them. Orcs poured into the room. “After my rather troublesome prisoners somehow managed to tame a balrog, the only thing in the world that could defeat me, I knew they had a chance of escaping, but I also knew that the famous, the glorious TTFS were quite capable of killing it for me, and so my orcs lured you in here with false promises, so that when you though they had tricked you, you would get rid of the balrog for me – which you did magnificently, let me add, and now I have you all here in my power and you will accede to my demands and I shall take over the world, mwa ha ha.”  
“Did you take breath once during that speech?” asked Gimli, interested.  
“That’s so not fair,” said Rosie.  
“That’s really quite suspiciously devious,” Arwen muttered to Goldberry, looking with narrowed eyes at the cloaked figure, but nothing of it was visible beneath the black material.  
“The Evil Overlord, I presume?” Goldberry said coolly.  
“We meet at last.”  
“Terribly nice that you went to all this effort to bring us here,” Arwen said vaguely, “perhaps next time a simple invitation would suffice, we’re quite sociable although of course our engagements diary does get filled up. Could you point us in the direction of the ladies’ room so we can powder our noses? These secret passages and close brushes with death do so take it out of one.”  
“Don’t try and distract me with that ditzy female crap,” snapped the Evil Overlord. “Are you ready to listen to my demands?”  
“Do we have a choice?” Arwen looked round at the circle of orcs, armed with a wide variety of lethal looking weapons. “Oh how tedious this all is. I suppose you want the remaining rings of power, or some elf blood to breed revolting creatures, or something else frightfully predictable.”  
“Not at all,” said the Evil Overlord. “I have a very specific demand from each of you; that’s why I brought you here.” He fumbled in a pocket and brought out a strip of paper. “Here we are. From Arwen Undomiel: all profits, tax-free, from the Elvish Flair chain of boutiques. From Goldberry, full rights to the Barrow Wights Adventure Experience. From Rose Gamgee, royalties on My Story, Married to the Hero of the One Ring, Rosie’s Right Advice, The One Thing He’ll never Talk About, and Rosie’s Sexual Secrets. From Gimli, exclusive shares in the mithril smuggling business. And from Eowyn – ”  
“Gimli!” Aragorn shouted, outraged.  
“I’ll explain later,” said Gimli evasively.  
“You can’t have my royalties!” Rosie shrieked. “I earn them with my own honest labour, you don’t know how like hard it is being married to practically the ring-bearer–”  
“What was that about Eowyn?” said Legolas. “I’m rather longing to know what you want from Eowyn.”  
“From Eowyn?” The Evil Overlord looked back at the paper. “From Eowyn–”  
“Hold on a moment,” said Arwen. “Am I right in understanding you don’t want any rings of power? No elvish blood for frightful genetic experiments? You don’t plan on resurrecting any ancient appalling horrors from the Silmarillion or finishing Unfinished Tales?”  
“No, no, no and no,” said the Evil Overlord tetchily. “You’ve heard my demands.”  
“Deviouser and deviouser,” said Arwen. “This is all too frightfully cunning. Are you thinking what I’m thinking, girls?”  
Goldberry nodded slowly. “Behind every great Evil Overlord there stands an even greater Evil Over–”  
“And I also want to take over the presidency of the Tolkien Token Female Society,” said the cloaked figure, in a quite different, low, husky, purring and unspeakably sexy tone.  
“You can’t do that,” said Gimli. “You’re not... oh, fuck me.”


	3. chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drugs, ideology, and dodgy dealing in dungeons. Beware parody and innuendo as fetishism hits Middle Earth, and Gimli still hasnt toned down the language.

"Oh stop that champing, or I'll rip your head off!"  
The TTFS and the men they had come to rescue jerked out of their dreary sleep or dismal reverie. It was dark and dank in the dungeon, and no one had broken the silence for a long time.  
"Gimli, d'you want to give me a heart attack?"  
"Yeah, well, no one asked about the state of _my_ heart before they locked me up with a fucking cabbage head going cold turkey."  
"He's thinking up poems," Goldberry snapped, sitting next to Tom Bombadil, whose chains were clanking as he twitched and nodded.  
"So _that's_ what you call it…"  
"Don't yell at each other." Sam sat miserably with his handcuffed wrists on his knees. "What are we going to do? You're the heroes, Aragorn, Legolas. Aren't you supposed to get us out of here?"  
"You ungrateful pig," Rosie shrieked suddenly. "We're the ones who like dropped everything and came to the rescue, and got through that bog and everything, and lost our best shoes, and all you can do is whinge whinge whinge!"  
The others stared at her in astonishment, but Sam only observed glumly, "It wasn't much of a rescue. You just killed the last surviving balrog–"    
"Oh for goodness' sake, stop going on about that–"  
"–And then managed to really annoy Sh… that… that…" Sam shuddered and fell silent.  
Goldberry giggled. "It was that bit when Arwen said 'but darling, all this drama of kidnapping our men and luring us here, don't you see it's a cry for help? You're just compensating for the whole extra legs thing'…"  
"And then when she was like 'Don't you realise we'd accept you as you are, it doesn't matter if you can't be as gorgeous as an elf, we all have our little problems, don't we, girls?'"  
"And then Gimli said 'yeah, my problem's that no one thinks I've got a cunt, whereas yours is that your cunt's all anyone thinks about'…"  
Gimli shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah, well, I thought we should get to the point. At least it was better than madam patronizing lady of the manor here."  
"You can bitch all you like, but I still think the poor thing's simply confused. Isn't that right, Rosie darling? You're the little psychologist among us."  
"Now who's being bitchy?"   
"Confused my arse. She's a bloody big insect who wants to chomp up our blokes for breakfast before grabbing our assets and making a run for Valinor."  
"Speaking of assets." Aragorn fixed Gimli with a stern eye. "What was that about mithril smuggling?"  
"Look, King Elessar Shmelessar, we're stuck in a dungeon about to be scoffed by a sex-obsessed surgically-enhanced spiderwoman, and you want to discuss a wee bit of private enterprise?"  
"You're a citizen of the New Middle Earth, Gimli. Where's your sense of collective responsibility? I need those revenues to fund the Ent resettlement programme, and rehabilitation for the pirates of Umbar, and medals and retirement packages for the warriors from the Paths of the Dead…"  
"What is this – State capitalism? I thought we'd got rid of Big bloody Brother with Sauron."  
"Ideological conflict is a mark of _human_ progress, I believe. If 'progress' is the right word, I think we elves might have a different term for it."  
"Oh bog off and think up a decent escape plan, Legolas, you smug bastard…"      
Eowyn and Faramir were sitting apart from the others, holding hands. Or rather, Faramir was holding Eowyn's hand. Eowyn was engaging in uncharacteristic self-examination. Perhaps monster-slaying was not, after all, the simple and chivalric business she had always believed it to be. Perhaps valour, these days, was no longer enough? She hardly noticed her husband stroking her fingers soothingly. Out of the corner of her eye she was waiting for Aragorn to stop harping on about state bureaucracy and tax-payers money and get back to the real business of heroes. Aragorn was too busy arguing for the moment, but Legolas, she noticed, was looking at her with amused speculation, oh, insufferable… She stuck out her tongue at him and he responded by crossing his undeniably gorgeous eyes, the smug bastard.  
Suddenly, by some hidden lighting system a corner of the dungeon lit up dramatically, revealing a sweeping staircase lined with complicated torture instruments. Music blasted through the stale air. Orcs poured out of nowhere, tap-dancing merrily down the steps.  
A spotlight stabbed down, illuminating their captor, clad in revealing red velvet and rubber, stepping with studied elegance down the carpet towards them. Her legs were encased in glossy leather boots and she trailed a whip suggestively down the steps.   
Sam let out a whimper and crossed his legs tightly. Tom Bombadil gibbered. Faramir's warm fingers tightened around Eowyn's.  
"For fuck's sake," Gimli said disgustedly.  
"Not red, darling," said Arwen. "Not, not red."  
Legolas applauded with languid enthusiasm.  
Shelob's multiple eyes narrowed. "You're taking the piss."  
"I assure you I'm not. Marvellous entrance."  
"Yeah, well, we all know about Shelob's marvellous entrance…"  
"Oh shut up Gimli."  
"It's just jealousy," Legolas explained disarmingly. Gimli let out a strangled growl.  
"You really are a smug bastard," Shelob said in her wonderfully purring, gravelly, sexy voice. There was no voice like it on Middle Earth. "I hope you've been pleasantly uncomfortable in my dungeon, letting your imaginations run wild. Now, let's talk about my demands, shall we? First, presidency of the TTFS."  
"Darling, you know I've been wanting you to join for years," Arwen said. "But I did set up the organisation, and I think as Token Females go you can't deny I simply must have first place, tragic romantic love, reincarnation of an ancient myth, embodiment of the dying beauty of a people, and all the same appearances on only six pages out of 1168, and three of those are in the appendices."  
"Which edition's that?" asked Goldberry jealously. "When I counted it was five."  
"I haven't got a fucking clue how many pages we've all got, but I do know you've got nothing to feel inadequate about, hairy-legs–" Gimli growled.  
"Who's she calling hairy-legs?" Goldberry muttered in an aside to Rosie   
"–when you're the only female you can guarantee all the men remember, especially Sam –"  
"Sam remembers _me_!" Rosie shrilled. "I'm much more like vital to him, even if I do only get an little cameo right at the end, I'm in his thoughts all the time, aren't I Sam, in the subtext, much more than any stinky old spider."                
"Anyway I assume you were planning on slipping away to those Grey tax Havens, once you got your other demands," Goldberry said coolly, "and I don't see how you can hope to lead the TTFS from there."  
Shelob raised an eyebrow enquiringly.  
"Too much competition."  
"Galadriel, Celebrian, Finduilas…"  
"That's a bloke, stupid."  
"No it isn't."  
"Is."  
"Is not."  
"Is."  
"Oh alright," Shelob interrupted in her devastating drawl. "Forget the TTFS. When I'm monstrously rich and famous no one will care about all of you anyway. Let's get onto the real demands. Profits from Arwen, rights from Goldberry, Rosie's royalties, Gimli's shares. And from Eowyn…"  
"At last," said Legolas. "Do tell, just what _do_ you want from Eowyn?"  
"Full copyright on all her fanfiction," said Shelob.  
There was silence.  
In her time, Eowyn had endured Wormtongue's groping. She had faced down the Witch King of Angmar. She had killed a balrog, even if she shouldn't have. But worse, far worse than any of that, was feeling herself turning red under the stares of her companions. There was utter incredulity in their stares, shock, alarm, salacity and surmise. Only Legolas was smirking faintly.  
"You write fanfiction?" said Gimli at last, blankly.  
Eowyn wished the ground would open and swallow her up.  
" _Eowyn_! Really?"  
"You don't!"  
"About… us?"  
Eowyn wished a large fireball would land on the dungeon and blow them all to oblivion.  
"Ahem! I'm the one in control here, and I think you should be paying me some attention," said Shelob, rather peevishly, as they continued to stare at the fiercely red-faced Eowyn. "Now we're all clear about the demands, I've got forms here for you to sign." She clicked her fingers and an orc scurried forward and placed in her hand a pile of parchments. "So. Who's first?"  
The silence continued.  
"Oh, come along now. It's not so difficult. You don't even have to sign in blood, much as I'd enjoy that, I've perfectly good ink. Well, Arwen? Really, you should be flattered that I recognised your boutiques' profit potential: it's thanks to my influence that my minions the orcs developed a taste for the pretty things in life."  
"It's outrageous," said Arwen. "I simply wouldn't dream of signing over the profits. Shelob, darling, what happened to sisterhood? You have your little projects and I have mine, and trying to take over someone else's patch – well, its simply bad taste, it's so bourgeois."  
"So you refuse?"  
"Of course I refuse. We all refuse, don't we, girls?"  
"You bet!"  
"Too fucking right!"  
"Of course."  
"Er," said Eowyn faintly.  
Shelob did not seem to make any sign, but with frightening suddenness the orcs shot forward. In a second they had surrounded the chained men and dragged them to their feet.  
"Well in that case…" Shelob's fabulous purr had taken on a distinctly dangerous note. "I've got... let me see… one, two, three, four, five men here to play with, and while I know it's elf torture we really enjoy," she shot Legolas a fond glance, "I'm sure I can be quite creative with all of them." Very delicately she lifted one leg and prodded Sam with a spiked six-inch heel. He fell to his knees, sobbing.  
"Some people pay good money for that," Legolas observed, to no one in particular.  
"I wouldn't want you to be having _too_ much fun." Shelob ran the tip of her whip teasingly between Aragorn's legs. Aragorn shut his eyes and swallowed.  
"Excuse _me_ ," Arwen said sharply. "I think you're getting rather far from the point, Shelob. That's my husband you're playing with."  
"It is, isn't it." Shelob gave the whip a small jerk upwards. Aragorn groaned.  
"Don't be disgusting," Arwen snapped. "Aragorn!"  
"Well fuck me, I didn't think Strider even went to public school…"  
"Oh shut up, Gimli."  
"You'll have to stop now, before things get beyond the PG rating," Eowyn said.  
Shelob removed the whip reluctantly. "I think we could get away with a good lashing," she whispered voluptuously in Aragorn's ear. Aragorn gasped. "But then again, I may just have to kill you."  
With a prolonged creaking, several orcs pulled back hefty black bows, the arrows aimed at point blank range at Aragorn's heart.  
"Sign," said Shelob. "Or he dies, without even the fun bit in-between."  
"You can't kill him," Goldberry said calmly.  
"Why not? There's a character death warning at the beginning. There's nothing – at – all to stop me."  
The arrows creaked back further on their strings; the orcs licked their hideous lips in anticipation.  
"No, I mean you can't kill him, because without him Arwen's boutiques chain will collapse and you'll lose all the profits."  
Shelob turned the dominating gaze of her many eyes on Goldberry, who met them unflinchingly. "Explain."  
"Elvish Flair gets tax exemption because it's been classified as art instead of business. It even gets subsidies from the lottery fund. But without king Elessar's personal intervention at the tax authorities, the chain's bound to be investigated for fraud and shut down."  
"Aragorn, you two-faced fucker, and you were going on at me for a bit of smuggling on the side," Gimli shouted, enraged. "Go ahead and shoot him, the bastard."  
"You just try being married to Arwen," Aragorn muttered, sweat pouring down his face. But  
Shelob signalled, and the orcs slowly turned the arrows aside, until they pointed at Tom Bombadil.  
"One down, but another four to go," said Shelob. "Just what is he on, by the way?"  
"What _isn't_ he on," Gimli muttered.  
"And please, spare me the guff about Middle Earth losing a great poet," Shelob said, as Goldberry opened her mouth to speak. "I don't want my orcs to laugh so much they lose their aim."  
"You still can't kill him though," Rosie piped up shrilly.  
"Oh yes I can, midget. And a million English teachers will thank me."  
"No, you can't, it's because he's like really important to the barrow wights thing, that's right, isn't it Goldberry. He's writing the ad campaign and everything, without him the venture will never get going and you'll get no rights to it."         
"You expect me to believe that?" The black bows gave an extra creak of strain.  
"It's true. That swords n sorcery brigade, they really _like_ crap poetry. Without Tom, no one will come and visit."  
Tom mumbled something that sounded like "All is dark in the barrow wight's lair, cobwebs and nightmares and treasures are there, for the family it's a fantastic day out, as your kids disappear with a sickening shout…"     
"Hmmm. I'm not entirely convinced. But with two down, there are still three to go."  
The arrows inched round until they were aimed at the trembling form of Sam still grovelling on the ground.  
"I'm quite looking forward to getting rid of this manic depressive," Shelob said. "Sign up, ladies, or he goes the short cut to join Master Frodo."  
"Sam!" Rosie shrieked, covering her eyes.  
"Don't be such a dickhead." Gimli said. "All Rosie's royalties are from her columns about Sam and his fucked-up fixations. Get rid of him and she's got nothing to write about. You lose any future profits."  
Rosie peeped out from between her fingers. It was hard to work out who looked more disappointed, Sam or Shelob.  
"Oh alright then." Shelob gave Sam a spiteful kick. "That still leaves two, and believe me, my orcs' arms are getting tired, they might just shoot by accident."  
Now the arrows were pointing avidly at Legolas' shoulder, thigh, groin, side, calf, wrist... Legolas looked resigned.  
"I'd love to get rid of you a little more slowly," Shelob said lustfully. "I quite fancy letting you bleed to death, for example. Or I could send you briefly insane, for the fun of it. Signatures. No? Then off we go."  
"Stop," shrieked everyone in the room. One bow twanged as an over-excited orc let it go. The arrow thumped into Legolas's arm.  
"Ow," said Legolas mildly. He pulled it out with a small wince and tossed it away. Blood trickled down his slender fingers. He sucked it off, apparently oblivious of the transfixed gaze of everyone around him.  
Now what?" Shelob sighed exasperatedly.  
"You can't kill him!"  
"You just can't!"  
"It's impossible."  
"Why not?"  
"Because… it's Legolas."  
"The most gorgeous being on Middle Earth."  
"The wet dream of every teenager…"  
"Housewife…"  
"Law student…"  
"Bio-chemist…"  
"Dwarf…"  
"Who said that?" Gimli demanded.   
"Nice try, but not good enough,' Shelob said. "Bye bye, hunk."  
"Mithril," said Arwen.  
"What?"  
"You need Legolas if you want control over the Mithril industry. Gimli looks after the mining, but it's Legolas who smuggles it out via the pirates of Umbar; why else do you think those two are so inseparable? Lose Legolas and the business will collapse."  
"Legolas!" Aragorn shouted, in new outrage. Legolas just smiled at him with infuriating charm.              
Shelob was getting cross. "You'd better not think of an excuse to spare this last one," she snarled. "Right, Boromir, prepare to meet your maker."  
"Faramir," Faramir corrected diffidently.  
"Whatever. No one's going to persuade me that you're vital to my plans. Well, Eowyn? Don't tell me, he ghost-writes your fanfiction. He's your inspiration. Don't make me laugh; I've read your stories." Shelob glanced wickedly at Aragorn.  
"There's nothing to gain from my fanfiction," Eowyn said bravely. She was a shield maiden. She had been brought up to always speak the truth, however cringeworthy it might be.  
"Oh yeah? It's read by thousands. Just do a search on the Palantir."  
"But there's no copyright on it. That's the whole point of fanfiction. I make no profits on it because it isn't original. All the characters belong to someone else. I write it purely for my own enjoyment, and out of a deep admiration for Tolkien's works."  
"You're kidding me."  
"I'm not. You've just never bothered to read the disclaimer."  
Shelob stamped her spiked heels in rage. "You do it for just for _fun?_ For wish-fulfilment? You revolting idealist. Well in that case, I'm going to kill Boromir– "  
"–Faramir…"             
"–just for fun, and I don't care whether you all sign or not, he's still a gonner. Say your prayers, Token Man. Fire!"  
For a fleeting fraction of a second, Eowyn's eyes met Aragorn's. Beloved, smelly, sweaty Aragorn whom she'd fought with and adored in a thousand fanfictions born of her teeming brain. And yet, strangely, she was most aware of the gently pressure of Faramir's hand on her own. Familiar hands, so much so she hardly ever noticed them. Undemanding, soothing, patient. Hands that were prepared to wait, however long it took.  
Goodbye Aragorn, she thought, and she didn't have time to wonder whether she thought it with sadness or relief, because she was already leaping forward to place herself between Faramir and the deadly arrows.  
In the same fraction of a second, the TTFS sprang into action.  
Arwen crouched and leaped into the air. She hung there magically for a moment, arms outstretched and hands crooked elegantly in fighting runes, and then she danced along the row of flying arrows, faster than lightning, her dainty elvish feet kicking each one away so that they clattered harmlessly into the wall. She landed again before she had even taken off, not a hair out of place.  
With a guttural dwarfish battle cry, Gimli seized a length of chain and swung it about her head in a lethal arc. It crashed into a line of orcs, sending them all staggering to the ground.  
Rosie hitched up her skirt and pulled a short dagger out of her knickers. Waving it wildly and shrieking at the top of her voice, she charged straight at Shelob.  
Goldberry shook out her gown so that all the water drops on it glittered dazzlingly. They flashed into the eyes of the remaining orcs, blinding them completely. Shading their eyes pathetically and howling, they blundered into each other and collapsed.  
"… And that'll teach you to go round threatening my Sam, you cow, who do you think you are anyway, with your fancy boots, he was never obsessed with you, he's got a completely like normal attitude…"  
"Er. Rosie."  
"It's alright, Rosie, you can stop now."  
"Darling, do stop shrieking like that, it's giving me a headache."  
Rosie looked round slowly. The whip dropped from her little hand. She went pink. "Um…"  
"I was rather enjoying that," Shelob said. "And I don't think I was the only one. Now now, you naughty man." She winked playfully at Aragorn.  
"Don't be ridiculous,' said Aragorn, with dignity.  
Goldberry looked round at the groaning or unconscious orcs lying around the dungeon. "I think we won."  
"Of course we did. No one fucking messes with the Tolkien Token Female Society and gets away with it. Not even Token Females." Gimli nudged Shelob with her boot. "So what are we going to do with you then?"  
Shelob smiled salaciously. "I suggest you lock me up in that deep dark dungeon under Minas Tirith, under the personal surveillance of King Elessar. I promise I'll be an, um, _exemplary_ prisoner." She wriggled suggestively, watching her fabulous voice sending shivers down several spines.  
"We'll do no such thing," said Arwen briskly. "Honestly, Shelob, don't you know you're ruled by enlightened elves now? Well, partly at least. Aragorn's almost an elf. We aren't barbarians, thank goodness, no dungeons for the New Middle Earth."  
"Are you sure about that? Far be it from me to sow the seeds of distrust between a happy couple, but have you actually really explored what's downstairs in your castle?"  
"Well, I mean, I know we've got dungeons…" Arwen, for once, sounded slightly flustered. "I mean, we'll deal with you humanely, won't we, Aragorn darling?"  
"I wonder what's your husband's definition of 'humane'…"  
"I think we need to get out of here," Aragorn interrupted, in his most kingly voice. "Tom Bombadil's in need of, um, refreshment, Sam's clearly traumatised, and Legolas is dripping blood all over the place…"  
"Oh, Legolas!"  
"Let me help you!"  
"You poor sweet."  
"Trust you to get an arrow stuck in you _again_ , you daft bugger."  
I could faint if you like," Legolas offered obligingly.  
"So long as you don't expect me to pick you up," said Aragorn coldly. "I've got a bone to pick with you, Legolas, about a certain business with Gimli here."  
"Oh shut up, king holier-than-fucking-thou Elessar, thanks to Goldberry here I know things about you that would make any anti-corruption committee rub their little hands with glee."  
"But Gimli, she just made that up, didn't she, to save him from Shelob," said Rosie. "Didn't  
she?"  
"Like Arwen made that up about Legolas, you mean?"  
"I think I am going to faint," Legolas said dreamily. He slid to the ground in a graceful blur of pale limbs and hair.  
"Wuss," said Gimli.         
******************  
                
Castle Fang was just a faint pimple on the horizon behind them. The sun shone, the sky was bright, birds sang peacefully from the long grasses. Legolas looked up idly at the sky, humming an elvish tune, smiling his habitual faint cat's smile.  
Beside him, Sam bumbled along. "You could turn these marshes into a right nice garden, eh, master elf, and this sunshine continues…"    
"O birds that trill so sweet and soft,  
Spreading your wings as you soar aloft,  
Carrying words from East to West  
Of the glorious deeds of the TTFS…"  
"West and S is an assonance."  
"Oh, do stop showing off. I didn't think that was too bad actually. Your hubby certainly has perked up rather wonderfully, hasn't he."  
"A bit too bloody wonderfully, if you ask me…"  
"I asked him to compose a paean to the TTFS and the rescue," Aragorn said pompously. "He's going to read it out at the celebration."  
What celebration?"  
"Of the opening of the new fetish scene of Minas Tirith, of course," Shelob called, from where she was toiling along in front of Rosie still grimly clutching the whip. "Your little boutiques may be keeping the shadow economy of Gondor afloat, but that gaping hole in the tax office coffers can only be filled by _my_ business…"  
"Aragorn!" Arwen was scandalised. "I do hope she's joking. She is, isn't she? Aragorn!"  
"I'm not sure I want to partake of this discussion,' Goldberry whispered to Gimli. Quietly they slowed their pace, falling back past Rosie trying not to listen to Shelob's seductive purr ("Come on, midget, you're already a fetish object. Think what eight inch heels would do. Admit it, you'd like to take that lash to Sam's little fat buttocks…") to Eowyn and Faramir, who were walking along at the rear of the group.   
Faramir was holding Eowyn's hand. Eowyn strode along with her usual confident pace, her yellow hair flying, her blue eyes fixed on a horizon no one else could see.  
"Eowyn."  
Eowyn came back slowly from her daydreams. "What?"  
"Thanks."  
Eowyn considered Faramir. Fanfiction was fun. The possibilities were endless. She looked ahead to where Aragorn and Arwen were walking side-by-side. Their heads were close together but it was impossible to tell if they were arguing or exchanging endearments or sharing a joke.  
Yes, fanfiction was fun. But in the end, there was no gain to be made out of it.  
"That's alright," she said, squeezing Faramir's hand.  
She realised that Goldberry and Gimli were looking round at her with interest, speculation, and the beginning of a wild surmise.  
"What?" she asked warily.  
"Do you _really_ write fanfiction?"  
"About us?"  
Eowyn looked at Faramir, but he just smiled at her.  
"Do you ever write…" Gimli scuffed a boot shyly in the grass. "Oh fuck it. Do you ever write, you know, slash stuff, about me and Legolas?"  
A mischievous whisper of elvish melody reached them from where Legolas walked along, still gazing contentedly upwards. "Hey, Gimli, you slapper," he said, without removing his gaze.  
"Legolas, you fuck," Gimli said, with relief.        
"So, Eowyn. Are we in one of your fanfictions right now?"  
"Will you tell us how it ends?"   
Eowyn grinned. "It just did."  



End file.
